THE TRUMPET notes rang clear, loud, and sweet! Only one man could blow like that. So true, Louis Armstrong floated down, tossing off high Cs like nobody’s business. And the earth ruptured forth into teeming masses.Talla Lalla made the call: “Hear ye, hear ye, this is Judgement Day time when the quick [the mother-in-law said, ‘He mean Usain Bolt’] and the dead shall meet their Maker and give account. Some goin’ up, some goin’ down. Amen!”Satan, dressed in drag, was waiting by the fiery pit. I did a double take: “BC, that is you?” And he said: “Lowdown, this is my time fuh bunning! Ah ready fuh yuh fire-trucking backside”.Trevor Marshall stood before the throne. God said: “You and that Gabby were always attacking Admiral Nelson and wanting to take him down. Vengeance is mine, not yours. Guh down!”And the crowds echoed: “Guh down! Guh down!” as they hustled Trevor down the fiery pit. But I begged: “Lord, give ’e a break. He used to treat his white students nice.” And the Lord said: “Okay! Don’t stop down dey! Come up, come up, come up . . . .”And Trevor shot back up. And it was my turn. They raked up how I stole the Vaucluse’s potatoes and cucumbers; promised to marry and didn’t; lusted: “Even last Sunday, did you not wax erotic while hugging young Ms Billy?” “Cuddear, Lord, that girl has skin like velvet, a shape to die for; she was wearing a bikini top and a towel with probably nothing underneath. I is only man.” God smiled: “Lowdown, you are a reprobate and a dirty old man. But you have never forgotten your Maker and I forgive you. Go pick out a harp and some wings.”But then an angel rushed up to God and whispered. And suddenly I saw a different countenance as He loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:“Lowdown,” He thundered, “did you assist Gabby to win with that stupid song?”And I said: “Me, Lord? I don’t know Gabby from Adam.”And the Lord said: “Adam, where art thou? And bring me Gabby. Now, do you know Gabby from Adam?” And I had to say yes, for I had seen Gabby in the paper and Adam in those Jehovah Witness books naked behind a bush.“So you’re lying. And you’re lying about helping Gabby win the crown!”Then I remembered. Gabby’s arranger Mike Sealy had asked me last Friday morning to provide a cuatro to use as a prop in Gabby’s song. I had got him one from Myrna Taitt.I tried to explain that Mike and I go back about 47 years. We played in Crescendos and Soul Kings, did bossas for the Brazilian ambassador, a Celtic gig one Old Year’s Night. I interpret visions for him. The man is my friend.I had not heard Gabby’s song before Friday night. It is patently not a calypso and had no place in a Barbadian competition. Gabby himself defeats his own argument. He claims it is “nothing but calypso”, but yet is fused with Brazilian, Venezuelan, spouge and African influences. That cannot be.Take coucou. Ken Williams, the barber, will tell you his daughter Pat made him a coucou which he had to drink with a straw. Nothing wrong with that. Coucou can be soupy, tight, lumpy or mellow. But if you add tortillas, Brazil nuts or callalou, it is not coucou. My friend Glyne made “coucou” with pepper and seasoning, but forgot the okras. His own daughter had to tell him that was “stiff pap”, not coucou. That is why we must keep fusion and confusion from these shores . . . .“Too true, Lowdown,” said God, “Bajan coucou and Bajan calypso must brook no alien penetration. I and I God am a Bajan and will not tolerate that assault, that travesty on my culture. And, as you were part of it, you must guh down! guh down!”As they grabbed me, I heard a distant phone ringing, ringing . . . and woke up. “Dick Hoad”, the voice said, “bring me my usual ten pints of goat’s milk today.”Only one person calls me by that name. And I beg y’all: don’t let God find out that Mike Sealy is probably high on my goat’s milk when he writes those boss arrangements.
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.